Art Story

I finished painting the dining room walls white a few nights ago, so I headed out yesterday to look for colorful art to hang on them and found the above cow painting.  Bugs had crawled inside the frame and even had the nerve to die right there between the glass and the mat in plain sight.  Ew.  But I was curious about the artist, so I did a quick Google search that revealed a promising lead.  So I shot off a quick e-mail and in (literally) 2 minutes got this response:

You are a good sleuth!  Thank you so much for finding me!

That, indeed, is my painting.  It is acrylic on paper. 

How fun this is for me!  I wonder how it got to an antique store in Birmingham.

My name is Louise Bourne.  Here's my website, which is maybe how you found me:  www.louisebourne.com

There, you will find a current resume and work, including recent cow paintings!  

I live in Maine, where your new acquisition was painted.  May you enjoy it.

Best,

Louise Bourne

We exchanged several more e-mails, and I learned this painting was done fairly early in her career.  She even mentioned that she forwarded my photos of her painting to her New York City curator.  She also asked me how much I paid for the painting ("errr... clearly not enough if you're the sort of artist who has a NYC curator") and gave me some solicited advice on how she would reframe it.  When I'm not regretting what a huge time suck the internet can be in my life, I really love how it makes the world smaller and let's us 'meet' interesting people.